It was like awakening from an evil dream. My fear welled up in fury. Silently I launched an attack; with the torch I held I let fly in blind and murderous onslaught. I struck something a blow that glanced; the torch slipped from my grasp, but the creature staggered and sank to the floor. I had my hands on its body now, and a crazy exultation took hold of me when I realized that my opponent was merely a man like myself and at my mercy. The stroke I had given blindly seemed to have stunned him, for he made no resistance, but lay crumpled up, as I found by groping. His breath came harsh and irregular.
Who was he? For what seemed immeasurable time I searched, but I could not find my torch.
Obviously I had made an important capture, and the best thing to do, since my light was lost, would be to lock the fellow-prisoner in and go for reinforcements.
I had a handkerchief; so had he. With their assistance I triced him in a position from which he would not easily free himself. I placed him face downward, with his head turned aside for breathing and his legs doubled back, and I clipped each wrist to the opposite ankle.
Then I groped my way down the long turnings, found the darkened world again, locked the tower door, and made for the House.
The rest was like the return of horrid dreams. With the moon gone, still the stars gave a grey cast to the darkness. I saw some fluttering-draped figure descend from the first storey by the outside stairs; I heard distracted sobbing. I saw vague forms that followed one another on the lawn, heard phantom calls and a queer hysteric laughter. The place seemed more alive by night than at any hour of day.
Maryvale, I discovered afterward, had come out again, clambered down all the way by the ivy. Lib, in the room next his, had heard him this time, caught sight of him, fled across the passage to Mrs. Bartholomew, shared that lady’s dismay on finding me also flown, summoned Pendleton, who had roused Aire and come helter-skelter in pursuit of the errant man of business. Lib and Mrs. Bartholomew, in different styles of negligée, now stood spectators of the course. Millicent Mertoun, too, had come crying out of doors by those northern stairs, in her sleep, as she had come that first night with the American girl watchfully by her side.
But to-night she roved alone. Where was Paula Lebetwood, whose room is next the stairs, and who, however soundly she may have slept, must have heard her dear friend’s weeping?
Lights were awakening in various chambers. Maryvale, much surprised at the solicitude of his captors, was explaining courteously that he had merely descended to “pick herbs.” Alberta Pendleton had appeared and was taking Miss Mertoun back to the House.
By the time I had called attention to myself and had caused my story to penetrate Crofts’ brain, many minutes had gone by. Four of us, followed by those audacious females, Lib and Mrs. Bartholomew, approached the towers. The door stood open. The intruder, securely trussed and locked in by me, had made off. He had taken my torch, invaluable as both light and weapon.